Before anyone wants to be contrarian about this: no one is going to stop you from using a stranger's weeb digital art as your profile pic. It is not illegal to use someone else's art for your profile pic without permission and no one is saying it's should be.
The point of this post is that this is an extreme overreaction to a conversation that concludes with 'pwease ask this other person for permission, the art is of their character design not mine 🥺' in a niche art community that operates on an honor system for the sake of being polite to one another.
oh hey, an entire thread validating my apprehension to selling art online
The real lesson is don't message artists on the internet unless you have an actual reason to.
Also stop using profile pictures. Let your username be your identity. Like in Smokey & The Bandit. All those truckers having cool radio handles like Bandit and Snowman. They weren't going "so, imagine like a generic anime girl with red hair and green eyes. A side-ponytail that's kinda' curly and a dainty smile represented by a single gentle curved line. That's a representation of my ego."
"I got a couple of hexbear smokeys here on the federated interstate. Churnin' up a fuss about something called a he/him lesbian? Whatever it is, steer clear of the thread. You'll know it when you see it. Massive pile-up up soy-ass comments and mod cops are chuckin' everyone in the modlog icebox."
this seems like the most insufferable person. imagine messaging an artist to gloat that your using their art without paying. and then get mad when they give you the most likely response. imagine calling an internet artist petite bourgeois . thank god these people never leave their houses to go to leftist spaces irl.
Before anyone wants to be contrarian about this: no one is going to stop you from using a stranger's weeb digital art as your profile pic. It is not illegal to use someone else's art for your profile pic without permission and no one is saying it's should be.
Are you sure it's not illegal? Not saying it should be but copyright law in the US is pretty strict.
Those reactions are pretty sickening though. They came to the artist insisting they be praised for even crediting them, how is the artist the bad guy for being like "no actually that isn't praiseworthy and you don't have my permission"
Depends on the purpose of the account in question. If it’s a personal account not being used for any financial gain, then it’s fair use. If it’s an account for commercial use, then it’s more likely to get struck as the owner of the image can claim their creation is being used for an economic benefit without just compensation.
Even if it's non-commercial a fair-use claim is far from guaranteed actually. there are four factors and it's just up to a judge to decide how to balance those factors, which basically means it could go either way in cases without a lot of precedent. A total crapshoot basically, unless you are using it not-for-profit, for educational use, and it has no effect on the wider market for the work. The factors are vague enough that lawyers can easily argue for and against fair use in many cases
I've watched a bunch of copyright takedowns take place over the past two decades but I don't recall ever seeing companies or individuals force someone to change an online avatar over copyright issues (as opposed to violating a community's rules)
just because it isn't frequent or high profile doesn't mean it's legal. It's just usually a mostly harmless use so people/companies don't often pursue it. In some cases it could maybe, barely qualify as fair use even. But in this case, the picture being used isn't even really incidental to the work that's being sold, it is the work that's been sold, for exclusive use, so it being used without a license is supplanting the market for the original. Anyhow the US copyright system is awful
Hi! I love your art so much!! Anyway, after this interaction, I'm going to form a lifelong grudge against you!!!
